


Little Differences

by Amuly



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Intercrural Sex, Interspecies, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, M/M, Meet the Family, Meeting the Parents, Size Difference, Uncircumcised Penis, circumcised penis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:15:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four Things Legolas and Gimli Found Differed Between Them... and One Thing That Was the Same</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Differences

**Author's Note:**

> I head canon that dwarves are circumcised and elves are uncircumcised for [reasons I lay out here](http://everybodyilovedies.tumblr.com/post/71700571785/vibraniumstark-replied-to-your-chat-me-im-off). This comes up in the fic.

 

1

Gimli took a long, long draught of elvish wine in an attempt to wash the grains they fed him down his throat. The food was dry and tasted as though it lacked all nourishment. It was sweet like honey and milk, and it filled the belly like cakes or candies were wont to, but it was a hollow fullness, to Gimli's senses. None of the hardiness of meats, cooked on the bone. These elvish folk seemed content to subsist off air and fairy dust.

“Something wrong, master dwarf?”

Gimli sighed and glanced over at that pointy-eared thorn in his side, Legolas. Still, where before Gimli wouldn't have hesitated to criticize this horse fodder elves considered to be food, Gimli bit his tongue and chewed over his food that were set before him. After all, this was the food the _Lady_ subsisted upon, and had laid out for them, her guests. Mustn't insult such a gracious hostess.

“Nothing at all, Elf,” Gimli grumbled, though he kept much of his usual gruffness from his tone. “Just... savoring your people's fare.” Gimli popped the one red thing on his plate into his mouth. It was some kind of fruit, less sweet than the others. He chewed at it resolutely, though it tasted acidic and dull on his tongue.

With all the grace of these fair folk, Legolas darted around the table and to Gimli's side, nudging Boromir down as he did. Gimli grumbled and resigned himself to the fact that the elf was talking with him this evening, and little he said or did was going to change that. Out of respect for the Lady, Gimli didn't leave the table then and there.

Legolas dipped his hand into the common spread and pulled out something round and brown. Another ball of grain, it would seem.

“Try this,” he prompted. “It is sweeter than honey and richer than carrots and pumpkin. Even your dwarvish tongue will sing with the sweetness of this.”

Reluctantly Gimli took the offered ball and put it in his mouth. Grains. Grains and dirt vegetables. It wasn't as dry as some of the other grains, but worse in its own way: it was so moist with sweetness that it stuck to his teeth, gumming up his mouth. Gimli picked up his glass and took a long, long drink of wine. Legolas was watching him, faint frown line between his thin little elven brows.

“You dislike it?”

Gimli sighed. “It is no offense to your fine elven fare, lad. I just don't think us dwarves were made to live off grains and dirt-plants. We are made of hardier stuff, and hardier stuff do we need to eat.”

Legolas' delicate frown stayed, but he did not grow irate as Gimli had worried. Perhaps the elf had some sense after all. “No offense is taken, master dwarf. Your claim may be true—perhaps elves and dwarves were not meant to eat from the same table.”

Gimli shrugged and took another load of mushrooms—the closest thing he had found on the table to meat in texture and taste. “Now, there you go slipping into bad habits once more, Elf: twisting my words to mean more than I said. No: an elf and a dwarf may sit at the same table. It just must be a variously stocked table, is all.”

Legolas' expression eased, something close to a smile tugging at the corners of his proper, delicate lips. “Ah,” he sighed softly. “Forgive me, master dwarf. Your solution is a wiser one than mine own eyes had been able to see.”

Gimli snorted and washed down his mushrooms with a generous helping of wine. “I hope you are not waiting on my surprise at that, lad, for you'll be waiting until the end of this age and beyond.”

The elf's tinkling laughter joined the musical beauty that filled the Lothlórien woods, and Gimli hid a grin into his wine. Elvish fare might not be fulfilling, on that he was certainly right, but he might have to revise his feelings on elvish friendship. There was the slimmest of chances that such a bond could be far more fulfilling than their food.

* * *

“Ah, see! This is a meal!”

Beside Legolas, Gimli was tucking into a leg of an animal that surely would have stood head and shoulders above Gimli during its life. Legolas watched with the smallest amount of horror as Gimli tore into the leg, gristle and tendons and... _juices_... flying every which way. When he raised his head just long enough to take a sip of his mead, Legolas saw that some of the animal carcass had stuck to Gimli's beard. How unappealing.

Legolas peered down the table, looking for some foods he might find more appetizing. Unfortunately, it would seem the stores of Rohan placed high value on salted meats. There were some fried potatoes, which Legolas took a sample of. His nose curled upwards as he bit into it. The oils they fried the potatoes in were surely from animals. Did men not know of olive oils, vegetable oils? Or was their thirst for flesh just that insatiable?

“Come now! Friend Legolas!”

Legolas glanced over at Gimli, who was grinning up at him. He had meat stuck between his teeth. “Enjoy your repast?”

Legolas reached for a dinner roll at last. It was drizzled with honey—a fine roll, if not somewhat more plain that what he was used to.

“Very much so. But are you? You seem ill at ease with the bounteous feast Rohan has laid out for us.”

Legolas leaned forward and picked some dried fruit from the center of the table. This he could stomach. “I find myself as ill at ease with this... simple fare as I believe you were in Lothlórien.”

Gimli snorted. “Figures. Get the elf some decent food and he turns his twitchy little rabbit nose up at it.”

Legolas laughed and picked at some more potatoes—these ones were soaked in butter, which was at least better than lard (though certainly not as appetizing as the simple way fresh vegetables were prepared by elves).

“I'm afraid this hardy fare is just not for me, my friend. We elves are all lightness and green—these meals seem to suit your sturdy reliability better, I think.”

“Ach, well my friend: there is one thing we can be sure tickles the taste buds of both elf and dwarf alike,” Gimli assured him.

Legolas cocked his head and waited. Gimli held up his cup of ale and knocked it towards him. “A strong drink.”

Legolas smiled and picked up his own mug, knocking it together with Gimli's. They drank their fill, then set their cups down on the table together. Legolas let his hand drift to Gimli's shoulder, then lower. “On that, my friend, you are most assuredly correct.”

2

Legolas stripped Gimli of his jerkin, and finally, after so many wasted minutes spent on undressing his soon-to-be lover, nothing separated the two but the cool night air coming through their bedroom window in Edoras. The cool night air, and...

“Have...” Legolas hesitated, swallowing thickly. He didn't want to be rude to his Gimli, didn't want to cause him pain or embarrassment, but... “You must forgive me, my friend, my love. But you know we elves are unfamiliar with dwarf culture and... physiology... and...”

Gimli was frowning up at Legolas from beneath heavy brows, great forehead of his creased in confusion. “Out with it, lad. I mean to teach you of the fabled drilling prowess of dwarves, but I cannae if you insist on squatting atop my thighs like some ripe young flower.” Gimli gasped, a thought clearly coming upon him suddenly. “Are you? I thought in all your many years, surely, but mayhaps-”

“No, no!” Legolas' mouth turned down into something that was most certainly not a pout, even if it resembled such an expression. “Amongst elves, physical affections are traded freely-” Legolas cut himself off as Gimli's eyebrows rose. He huffed and nodded down between Gimli's legs.

“I'm sorry to ask this, please take no offense, but: have you taken an injury? Or is this a... is this how you were born? A difference between dwarf and elf physiology?”

Gimli glanced down between his legs, then down at Legolas'. He then laughed, chest and belly rumbling hugely. “Nay. Come here, elf.” One of Gimli's thick, sturdy hands reached down between Legolas' legs and massaged the turgid flesh he found there. Legolas sighed softly and found himself relaxing, even though he still found the look of Gimli's own piece somewhat disconcerting.

With more delicacy than Legolas might have thought dwarf hands were capable of, Gimli rolled his member between them for a few strokes, then lightly tugged at his foreskin. “I am neither born different from you, nor injured. We dwarves have many customs which we do not share with other folk. This is one of them.”

“But if you are neither injured nor born differently...” Gingerly Legolas reached out one hand and wrapped long, delicate fingers around Gimli's odd member. It was fat and sizable, but its appearance was... shorn.

“It's a ceremony we undergo as newborns. On the day we receive our names, a small surgery sheers our foreskin from our manhood. It gives us no detriment: you will find everything works more than well enough.”

Legolas played with the member curiously, rolling the hardening flesh between his palms. The bulbous head of Gimli's manhood stood out proud, exposed in a way that Legolas' was not.

“It is not a toy,” Gimli pointed out. “You might handle it with more intention than one.”

Legolas laughed gaily, toying with Gimli's penis for a moment more before leaning in to give him a passionate kiss. “I suppose this is just another of those differences we have to learn to adjust for,” he mumbled against Gimli's lips.

“Much as I must learn to adjust to your disconcerting always-open eyes as you rest,” Gimli murmured back.

“Or your beard tickling my nose as you kiss me.”

“Or your ungainly legs and arms every which way while I try and get you to hold still,” Gimli grumbled.

Legolas laughed into Gimli's mouth and wrapped his arms around his back, all the way around to the front again. “Would you spend yourself between my thighs?” he whispered against Gimli's lips. The words made Gimli move faster than Legolas had ever seen a dwarf move before. With a mighty heft Gimli sat up, bringing a clinging Legolas with him. He moved them so Legolas was on the bed beneath him, peering up expectantly from his halo of blonde hair.

Gimli bent to kiss him once more, then nodded: “Get on your knees, then.”

Legolas moved quickly to comply, hearing the sound of Gimli spitting into his palm as they lined themselves up. When Gimli began to move between his thighs Legolas clenched tightly around them, wondering at the feel of Gimli's curiously shorn member between his legs. He leaned back and gripped Gimli's neck with one hand, tilting his head to invite kisses. Gimli eagerly complied, peppering soft little signs of his affection all down Legolas' shoulders and back.

“It feels different,” Legolas commented.

Gimli grunted as he shoved himself repeatedly between Legolas' thighs. His strong hands held fast to Legolas' hips, keeping him in place as their bodies rocked together. Legolas' body came alive beneath those hands, playing him like the most skillful harpist—or perhaps the most expert artisan, applying filigree to a sword's pommel.

“Is the difference displeasing?” Gimli asked, though his tone wasn't one of insecurity, merely curiosity.

“No. No,” Legolas breathed, “never displeasing.”

Gimli grunted and thrust harder, jarring Legolas' body with his forcefulness. His member between Legolas' thighs was stiff and sure, as solid as the dwarf himself. There was no foreskin to slide back and forth: just unencumbered, heated hardness.

By the time Gimli reached forward to wrap one strong, calloused hand against Legolas' own manhood, he was already on the verge. Gimli's hands were rough, yet gentle; dexterous, and inexorable. Legolas found himself spilling into Gimli's palm with just a few determined strokes, voice crying out to the ceilings of their lodgings.

Gimli followed soon after with a fearsome grunt, hips pressing hard against Legolas' thighs, broad chest and wide stomach plastered firmly against his rear and lower back. The dwarf's copious hair stuck to the sweat that had sprung out like morning dew on Legolas' skin, plastering them together. Legolas sank forward bonelessly, dragging his dwarf down with him.

As they lay, spent and satiated, a low rumble of laughter started up from where Gimli was resting. Legolas rolled, throwing a leg over his new lover, to peer questioningly up at Gimli's expression. “What is it, my Gimli?”

“Ah, nothing, nothing.” A pause, during which Gimli ran stunted, rough fingers over Legolas' smooth skin. Legolas shivered at the sensation and curled closer to Gimli.

Then, chuckle still in his voice, Gimli explained: “I was just ruminating on how, foreskin or no, we both appear to be expert swordsmen.”

Legolas laughed lightly, the tinkling notes of his mirth mingling harmonically with Gimli's deeper, rumbling tones. “We are at that,” Legolas agreed.

3

“How do you keep a braid in your hair, as silken smooth as it is?” Gimli asked idly.

Legolas paused, hair brush in hand, legs crossed where he sat on the ground of their Rohirrim tent. Gimli had his own brush in hand and was working his way through his beard, untying his braids and rebraiding them after a careful brushing. It was the eve of battle, or would be very soon: times were uncertain, and their march on Gondor was rushed. Best to take advantage of these quiet moments when they had them... even if Gimli might have been wanting to take a different kind of advantage of a certain lithe elf at just this moment.

Unfolding those long legs from beneath him, Legolas crawled his way, somehow gracefully, across the tent to Gimli's side. He held his brush out to Gimli, who set his down in his lap to examine it.

“Horsehair?” Gimli asked, turning the soft-bristled brush over in his hands.

Legolas shrugged. “When in Rohan...” He pointed at the bristles. “Normally my brushes are made from boars' hair, but the texture is just about the same.”

Tentatively, stomach feeling like it was a bed of shifting gravel, Gimli held up Legolas' hair brush and nodded at him. “Could I?”

Much to Gimli's relief, Legolas' face lit up with a soft happiness which stoked the fire that had first started burning in Gimli's heart back in Lothlórien. “Of course,” he acquiesced. Legolas shifted himself around, settling with his back to Gimli. Pushing himself to his feet, Gimli tentatively reached out and ran short, fat fingers through Legolas' shiny locks.

“It's like spun silk,” he wondered. “Does it even tangle when left unbound?”

“Of course it does,” Legolas chastised. “We elves are not all dreams and fairytales. I braid my hair for the same reason you do, my love.”

Gently Gimli ran the brush through Legolas' hair, marveling in the feel of silken locks flowing through his fingers like molten gold. Then he laughed, a low, rumbling thing as he smoothed Legolas' hair into place and started working fingers through for a braid. “You do not know enough about dwarves to make such a claim, presumptuous elf,” Gimli warned him. Deftly Gimli worked braids into Legolas' hair, placing them in such a way to pull his hair neatly back from his face.

“More jealously-guarded secrets?” Legolas' asked, tone teasing.

Gimli hummed low in response. Reaching down, he held out a palm to Legolas, who placed a hair clasp into it. “Our braids serve many purposes. One of them is to keep our hair tidy for work, whether in the forge or beneath the earth or on the battlefield. But another purpose is the story our braids tell. We have braids for families, for milestones of maturity, for honor and death...” Fastening Legolas' hair tight into place, Gimli ran his hands down Legolas' shoulders and leaned in, cheeks brushing against each other. “For binding, too, in love.”

Legolas' lips brushed his as he leaned back with a smile, eyes seeking his. “Is that what I have in my hair now?” he inquired lightly. “If we were to run across a dwarf party, would they read in my hair that a dwarf held my heart in his masterful hands?”

Dropping a rough kiss to Legolas' cheek, Gimli moved around to his front so he could kiss his elf properly. “Ai, they might at that. But they'd read too that an elf had stolen away a dwarf's heart in return.”

Legolas beamed up at Gimli for that, eyes shining like the brightest polished mithril. They kissed happily at that, disparate sets of lips meeting in perfect balance. They couldn't do much else, with the horsemen surrounding their tent in thick droves and Aragorn liable to return at any moment, since this was his tent, also.

Gimli broke away from Legolas' honeydew-sweet lips and held up his own more sharp-bristled brush. “Seems only fair that you would return the favor.”

Legolas hesitated, a frown between his eyebrows though his hand reached for the brush. “I'm afraid you will have to suffer elvish braids in your hair, since I have no knowledge of dwarvish ones.”

Gimli smiled as he settled himself down in Legolas' lap and tilted his head forward. “Then it seems fair, doesn't it?” As Legolas first touched exploratory fingers to Gimli's hair, he saw fit to add: “That is also why you'll only be braiding the hair from my head and not my cheeks. I will have to teach you proper dwarvish braiding before I let you touch that, Elf.”

A reprimanding tug at his long locks had Gimli laughing, before Legolas' fingers returned to sooth the area. “Your hair is thick and coarse as a pony's, though more wild and with a desire to tangle.”

“Ai,” Gimli confirmed. His eyes slid shut as Legolas worked the brush gently through his hair, part exercise in grooming, part sensual massage. Legolas' fingers made quick work of the braids, securing them in place with Gimli's heavy dwarf-made clasps. When he was done Gimli reached up to feel at the braids, sighting them with his fingers. They felt similar to how Legolas braided his own hair, though there was a slightly different note to them. Legolas' grinning face peered down at Gimli as he tilted his head back.

“Now if we run across an elves, they will have an eyebrow to raise at the dwarf who wears elven wedding braids in his hair.”

Gimli scoffed, then laughed. “I suppose I get my just desserts, and accept them with honor.”

Just then Aragorn strode into their tent, worried look marring his face as it had many days of late. His hair and beard were bedraggled, loose and messy in the style that he wore it. Glancing at each other, Legolas and Gimli shared a hearty laugh, startling Aragorn out of some of his malaise.

The ranger blinked at the dwarf and the elf, sat on the floor of their tent and laughing together. “What?” he asked. He glanced down at himself. “Did I get muck on me?”

Gimli shook his head, placing a strong hand on Legolas' knee. “Nay, Aragorn. The elf and I just found ourselves agreeing on something it would appear men do not.”

Aragorn cocked his head. “And what would that be?”

Simultaneously Legolas and Gimli tossed their hairbrushes at Aragorn, who jumped and curled his body away from the assault. “Proper grooming is essential for any effective warrior!” Gimli told him.

4

“What is this then?” Gimli asked, flicking a hand at Legolas' head. “A elven crown for the prince?”

Notably lacking his usual grace and confidence, Legolas reached up and delicately touched two finger to the twigs and berries on his head. “It is that, yes.”

Gimli coughed meaningfully and looked away. Legolas frowned.

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing at all, princeling.”

Legolas' eyes narrowed. “No, no: out with it. Does master dwarf disapprove of my adornments?”

“I never said such a thing.”

“Because I seem to recall dwarf-kings being equally adorned, or even more so. Gold and jewels spilling from their countenance, if I remember one visit to Thráin correctly.”

“Ai, it's not the fact of the adornment, but the kind that created the tickle in my throat which afflicted me,” Gimli finally admitted. His eyes were sparkling with mirth, waiting for Legolas' prompting. The stubbornness of dwarves. Legolas relented and crossed his arms while leveling Gimli with his finest disdainful stare.

“And how, pray tell, does a dwarf find fault with my elven crown?”

Around them, some of the elder party guests tensed, glancing warily between Legolas and Gimli. But the younger of the elves were snickering along with Legolas and Gimli, good humor eased by wine and friendly company. Not that any of the elves had been quite prepared for Legolas' triumphant return to Mirkwood including a dwarf in tow, but the younger ones had adjusted more quickly.

Standing up on the bench—for the hour was late, and elven wine was exceptional—Gimli flicked at Legolas' crown. “It's just quite a wee thing, isn't it? Flimsy. Why, unless there is some elven sorcery at work which I know not of, I imagine I could break this in one hand: crumble it like uncured concrete.”

Legolas batted Gimli's hands away as he reached for the crown, laughing gaily as they engaged in a small tussle for the ornament. Legolas came out the victor, holding his crown firm on his head with one hand and Gimli at a distance with the other.

“It is not meant for turning axe-blows, dear friend,” Legolas argued.

“Then what it is meant for?”

“Decoration.”

“Pwah!” Gimli snorted and threw himself back down on his seat—a booster of a sort, to bring him level with the elves gathered around the feast table (or at least, level enough to eat without trouble).

Legolas turned towards Gimli some more, resting one leg up on the bench as he leaned into his friend. His father sat off to his right, ignoring the presence of the dwarf in his kingdom and at his tables. Legolas was happy to let him. Gimli was here, with him, being honored at a feast with his people. It was more than enough.

Legolas trailed a hand down Gimli's sturdy shoulders, emboldened by good Mirkwood wine. “I suppose dwarf-crowns are imminently more practical?” Legolas' hand drifted up to Gimli's forehead, pushing away some flyaway wisps of hair from that noble brow. He was briefly tempted to lay a kiss on it, but perhaps that would be pushing things to far in his father's court.

“You think you know about dwarvish crowns, do ye?” Gimli asked, full of good humor.

Legolas squinted one eye shut and concentrated, letting his imagination taken. “I imagine it would be sturdy and thick. Metal of some sort. Not unlike your helm you wore into battle. Some _khudzul_ markings, maybe.”

Gimli hummed into his drink as Legolas played with his hair some more, fingers sinking without thought into that fiery red blanket. Some of the younger elves were snickering around them, but Legolas paid them no mind.

“Whoever said, exactly, that beauty and practicality be mutually exclusive?”

Legolas quirked an eyebrow at Gimli, who just shrugged. “I'll make you a deal, lad: when we reach the halls of my kinsmen, you look upon the crown of Thorin Stonehelm and tell me what you think of dwarvish adornments.”

Blood warm and skin warmer, Legolas scooted himself closer to Gimli on the bench, fingers twining and twirling through his thick hair. “I will do that, friend Gimli. When we arrive a fortnight from now in your homeland, I will judge whether or not dwarvish crowns are superior to elvish ones.”

“And my reward if I win?” Gimli asked, a light of mischief in his eyes.

Legolas glanced around at the unsubtle eavesdropping elves who surrounded them. Leaning in, Legolas brushed his lips against Gimli's ear as he murmured: “Something that will make you grateful for the stone-thick walls of your home.”

* * *

Gimli settled into his place next to Thorin Stonehelm's side happily. Good food, good drink, and his good elf on his other side: life couldn't have ended up any better for him, if he hadn't exactly imagined in even his wildest dreams having an elf by his side in his quiet moments of happiness after war.

Legolas had to lean down to speak to Gimli, legs curled up beneath him and chest far above the squat tables designed for dwarvish folk. “Thorin wears the crown which you think is superior to my woodland one?” he inquired.

Gimli nodded around a mouthful of beastie. “Ai. It's a mithril crown: light as your twigs and berries, hard enough to turn the mightiest blow from it. Set within it are the most precious jewels we dwarves have mined. It is a kingly crown, for a king who must some days fight for his kingdom.”

Legolas' eyes stayed fixed on the crown, eyes weighing it carefully. Gimli shrugged and went back to his feast. He would know later this evening whether or not Legolas judged the crown to be superior to his elven one (which it was, of course: far superior).

Finally, after some long minutes of consideration, Legolas leaned down to Gimli again and stated: “In honestly I cannot say which one I find to be more befitting a crown. Surely yours is suitable for your people, and beautiful to look at in its dwarvish way. But mine and my father's crowns fit our brows well, and share in the beauty of the woods over which we rule.” A pause as Legolas sipped at his wine before continuing. “I think in the end, I have grown too used to seeing you in your traveling helm, my friend, with a sturdy elven cloak on your back and your axe in your hand.”

Gimli looked up at Legolas at that, a grin stretching his lips. “Perhaps that was my problem,” he agreed. “For so many months your hair was braided for travel and fighting, your brow unadorned. I believe I, too, prefer you as such: stripped of your frills from your life in the elvish court, lean and practical, ready for battle.”

Beneath the table something grabbed at Gimli's thigh. He only just managed to keep himself from jumping, hands going up to grab at the edge of the table. Legolas was smiling wickedly down at him. “Would you approve if I suggested we excuse ourselves now and strip ourselves of all our current niceties?”

“I certainly wouldn't object.”

+1

“I sent you to Rivendell to keep the Ring out of elvish hands you return with an elvish hand in yours?!”

“Galadriel's blessing upon Gimli as 'elf-friend' is a _far cry_ from tying yourself to him!”

Gimli sighed as his father rushed forward to grab his shoulders and shake him hard. “They are treacherous beings! Flighty tricksters whose words are like smoke and promises like molten gold: beautiful and enticing, but impossible to hold in your hands.”

Legolas' eyes rolled skyward as Thranduil took hold of his elbow and gripped it tightly. “Will you be able to resist the call of the sea when your _dwarf,_ ” he spat the word, “dies and you are overwhelmed by grief?”

Gimli replied samely as he had this past week, since the dwarves and the elves had come together in Gondor to work on restoring the kingdom to its full glory: “He is the one I have pledged myself to, and there will be no other.”

“But there will be others for him, won't there? Elf lives are long, and their interests fleeting.”

Across the great feast table where Aragorn and Arwen sat as king and queen, Legolas tried to respond to his father in kind: “When Gimli's life is gone, I will turn to the sea to ease my sorrow. In the interim, we have many, many years to build our legacy here on Middle Earth: one that will last far longer than Gimli's life. He is mortal, yes, but I choose thus.”

Glóin stabbed a finger across the table at the party of elves seated there. “Do you owe me no loyalty? Your chosen companion locked me in a dungeon, delayed the quest to reclaim Erebor to the point that it was almost lost!”

“It was his father who ordered you kept there,” Gimli reminded him, “and luckily, you taught me to know better than blame a son for the sins of his father.”

“His line murdered our kinsmen!” Thranduil shouted. “Their dwarvish greed and hatred cost elves their lives.”

“Although the dwarves might have been Gimli's kin, they were not Gimli,” Legolas reminded his father.

“They are the reason Erebor was lost!” Glóin shouted.

“They are greedy, base creatures!” Thranduil moaned.

“You lie with this hairless tall one, who looks down his nose at us from his highest seat as first born?!”

“You allow one of those mistakenly-created imperfect ones to lie with your blessed figure?”

Abruptly the hall erupted, simmering tensions between the two sides of the table finally bubbling over into a full, roaring boil. Dwarves jumped onto the table and stormed across it: elves threw them to the ground like they were ripe fruit falling to the forest floor. Legolas and Gimli stood on opposite sides of the table, staring longingly at each other as their families battled it out.

Aragorn sat with his head on the table, while Arwen rubbed his back and looked on her kinsmen disapprovingly.

That evening, Legolas and Gimli retired to the same room, falling into each other's arms the moment the door closed behind them.

“I am sorry for my father's behavior,” Legolas apologized.

Gimli huffed as he looked up at Legolas. “No more sorry than I am for mine.”

Then Legolas' look turned sly, and he leaned down towards Gimli, arms draped over his shoulders. “Do you think we ought to try and reconcile our people's differences tonight? Privately, I mean.”

In one fell motion Gimli scooped Legolas up over his shoulder, carrying him with little difficult to their shared bed. Legolas laughed and didn't struggle, instead choosing to pepper kisses to Gimli's neck as he allowed himself to be manhandled. When Gimli tossed him down Legolas bounced and giggled before settling into a more “come hither” position and waiting for his love to join him.

Shucking his formal vestments as quickly as he could—but not quicker than the elf, whose clothing seemed designed for nudity at the drop of a pin—Gimli climbed up onto the bed and on top of his elf, grinning down as their bodies wriggled together delightfully.

“I think maybe we could broker a peace between elf and dwarf this evening, if we put our backs into it.”

Legolas' legs came up to wrap around Gimli's aforementioned back and he clenched his thighs encouragingly. “You will have to, I think, if we are to find any common ground between our peoples,” he teased.

So Gimli spent a goodly part of that night doing just that. And by the end, Gimli and Legolas thought that maybe they'd found at least one thing dwarves and elves held similar between them.

 


End file.
